Notes, types and motifs

Notes for the story 'Little Yellow Cheese Fetches Yeast for his Mother'

Gwilym Roberts heard this story many times at home in Cae-gwyn, a farm in Dolwyddelan.
His father, Richard Owen Roberts, who was born in Llanrhychwyn, near Trefriw,
Caernarfonshire, used to tell this story, and he in turn may have heard it from
his father, a native of the same area. 'I was the oldest of five, you see, and
then Dad used to tell it to Gwen, my sister, and Jean [and me].' Sometimes on
Sunday night but, most often, on Saturday night: 'We had to go to Sunday School,
you see, on Sunday, and then you had to wash, in a zinc tub, there was no bath
in those days. We'd all get into the zinc tub in our turn. And then we'd sit
in a row on the sofa, you see, before having our gruel, with a lump of butter
in it. We were ready to go to bed now. Dad would tell us the story of the Little
Yellow Cheese. He was...[He would] sit on the chair facing us...And then he
used to sing: 'Mae Iesu Grist o'n hochor ni,/Fe gollodd Ef ei waed yn lli...'
['Jesus Christ is on our side,/He spilt his blood most copiously...'] before
we went to our beds.'

Gwilym Roberts tells the story three times on the tape, with only minor variations.
This is the text of the third version. Only in this version is it mentioned
that the Little Yellow Cheese went on 'quite a long journey' to fetch yeast.
Although Gwilym Roberts told the story three times on the tape, he admitted
that he no longer perfectly remembered the exact progression of the tale, especially
the opening. In the section which tells of the two men cutting grass and cutting
a hedge we see, then (in comparing the written and oral versions) that some
words have been added and the order of one sentence changed.

In AD 75, the Romans built a fortress at Caerleon that would guard the region for over 200 years. Today at the National Roman Legion Museum you can learn what made the Romans a formidable force and how life wouldn't be the same without them.